The Trump Doctrine: What Ukraine Says About Trump’s Foreign Policy

by with 5 Comments FeaturedGlobalPolitics

One of the biggest stories of 2019…  

In the latest episode of The D.C. Apprentice reality show, we unpeeled another layer of the onion that is the Trump Doctrine. Whether it’s Brexit, Afghanistan, Jamal Khashoggi, summits with North Korea, tariffs and trade deals, Putin, and now, Ukraine, we bear witness to a convoluted set of policies without specific details and a heavy emphasis on maximizing publicity and attention. Trump’s foreign policy is based on minimizing or eliminating long-term military engagements, renegotiating agreements that play into his deal-making reputation, and provoking diplomatic altercations that further establish Trump as the Commander-in-Chief of Red State America.

Trump vocally embraces the paleoconservative philosophy championed by Patrick Buchanan, Steve Bannon, Lou Dobbs, and numerous contributors to Fox News and Breitbart News. It embraces traditional social positions and nationalism while strongly opposing trade agreements, immigration, and international organizations. It also has a strong isolationist influence that opposes military interventions. Between the trade wars, ICE raids, border wall funding, immigration and asylum reductions, NATO criticisms, and troop withdrawals in Afghanistan, Trump is reliably committed to Paleoconservative orthodoxies. 

Trump’s reputation as a deal-making businessman from his real estate business in New York to his TV show to his book, ‘The Art of the Deal,’ is built on maximizing publicity by making grandiose, must-see-tv gestures that consumes all oxygen from other competitors. Whether it’s the summits with the North Korean dictator, renegotiating NAFTA, and imposing tariffs on trading partners like China, Trump uses each opportunity and/or manufactured diplomatic crisis to further burnish his perceived deal-making reputation. 

Perhaps most importantly, Trump’s foreign policy is dependent on cementing his status as the Commander-in-Chief of red-state America. The President has gone all-in on being the war-time commander in the new cold war between red and blue America. Withdrawing from the Paris climate treaty is the perfect example. The trade wars with Mexico and China appeals to the rural working-class voters in Midwest and Southern states who see their manufacturing tradition threatened by globalization. Trump’s coalition swapped out college-educated middle-class voters in suburban counties for working-class voters in rural areas. He relishes any attack from blue-state America because it further establishes his war-time credentials with red-state America. Therefore, the Ukraine news only solidifies his support from his fans. In the mind of his supporters, they are at war, and all is fair in love and war. That might seem drastic, but his supporters love that there is no line he won’t cross to defend them against their enemy. Trump has nearly 3 years of history proving himself to his supporters that he will fight every fight that they believe his predecessors were too weak to engage, and this is no different.

This article was originally published on 27 September 2019.

What the 2019 Election Results Say about 2020

by with One Comment FeaturedPolitics

Tuesday night’s election results have been spun by every pundit to project onto the 2020 presidential race. When put in context, some of the highlights are relatively meaningless. Matt Bevin’s loss in the KY governor’s race is not an accurate representation of the political dynamics in Kentucky. Bevin has repeatedly appeared on the list of the most unpopular governors in the country. It says something about the strength of the KY GOP to nearly carry an incumbent with a 2:1 unfavorable rating to a near tie with the setting Attorney General who is the son of a popular former governor. It also says something that the GOP swept the rest of the statewide races by landslide margins, including the election of the states first Republican (and African-American) Attorney General. In Mississippi, the Lt Governor defeated a popular 4-term Attorney General. People can quibble about the margins in these races, but the real story is not what happened in Mississippi or Kentucky. The election results that matter occurred in Virginia. 

For the first time in nearly 3 decades, Democrats control every statewide office and the state legislature. The political trend in Virginia has benefitted Democrats, but it is a similar trend in other states. George W Bush carried this state by 8 points in both of his elections. Before the 2006 election, the GOP had large majorities in the state legislature, both senate seats, and 2 of the 3 state constitutional offices. The growth of the DC metropolitan area in northern Virginia has fueled the blue resurgence, but the tide in suburban areas is a growing threat to Republican electoral prospects.

In the initial post-mortems of the 2016 elections, the media focused on the rural midwestern counties and communities that flipped from Obama to Trump, but they overlooked the counties and communities that flipped from Romney to Clinton. For all of the blue-collar working-class White voters that broke the Blue Wall of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, there were just as many college-educated middle-class Whites and Latino voters in suburban districts that stayed just beneath the media radar because it did not flip a Romney state to Clinton. While Trump’s margins in working-class states across the Deep South and Midwest were incremental improvements over Romney, he did significantly worse in Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada. 

We are witnessing a seismic political reorganization around new issues that shatter the red/blue narrative that has lingered since the 2000 election. Some issues like abortion and guns will not be affected by this shift, but others like immigration, trade, and global relationships/competition will become the new litmus tests. States with a heavy reliance on international commerce and immigrant labor like Texas and Arizona will continue their transition into purple states, while rustbelt states with a skepticism of global influences like Kentucky, Iowa, and West Virginia will continue become more red. 

John Edwards spoke of ‘Two Americas,’ and while he was technically right, his analysis for why this exists is not. The ‘Two Americas’ are not necessarily the right vs poor, it is urban/suburban vs rural and old vs young. States with growing senior populations and states that have fallen behind in the technology revolution of the last decade are the real base for Trump’s political party. As the percentage of college grads increases, Trump’s grip on the state decreases. This trend started under Obama, but Trump has accelerated it. It also means Trump’s coalition cannot win a national election, but like 2016, it is possible for his opponent to lose it. 

Similar Read: The Trump Doctrine: What Ukraine Says About Trump’s Foreign Policy